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One year ago this month, I opined about taxpayers footing the bill for several college football bowl games. Today, I decided to revisit the college football bowl scene and find out who's sponsoring this year's post-season gridiron clashes. [Note: I brought this back to the front page of this blog after it was cross-posted Christmas Day at BigGovernment.com. Enjoy!]

<p>"NatWest handed Al Qaeda terrorist 100% mortgage to buy £93,000 home he turned into a bomb factory"</p> <p>SNIPPET: "A bank has sparked outrage by handing over a 100 per cent mortgage to an Al Qaeda terrorist who smuggled himself into Britain.</p>

Dec. 16, 2009, 7:00 p.m. EST Debt disaster fears rumble from Athens to London Game of chicken for bond spreads: Will E.U. honor 'no bailout' clause? By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) -- Rumors of a debt disaster are swirling around Europe, from Athens to Madrid and all the way to London. Investors have rushed to sell Greek bonds since the newly elected government of George Papandreou made a startling revelation: the deficit will soar to over 12% of gross domestic product this year, well above previous official projections. Greece's predicament has escalated concerns about contagion in other European countries...

With three banks that were shuttered Friday, there have been 133 U.S. bank and thrift failures this year, more than five times as many as in 2008. Tougher regulations may accelerate the pace next year. The implosion of several large residential mortgage lenders in 2008 gave way to troubled community lenders, which were hobbled by commercial-construction and real-estate loans that soured. During 2009, many failed institutions were sold to healthier banks, with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. agreeing to share in losses on acquired assets. Holding companies taking advantage of generous terms include New York Community Bancorp(NYB Quote), which took...

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Credit Suisse Group helped clients in Iran and elsewhere conduct financial transactions in secret, saying Wednesday the Swiss bank "established a business model to allow these rogue players access to U.S. dollars." Mr. Holder and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau detailed a decade-long effort by the bank to carry out transactions from Iran, Libya, Sudan, Burma and Cuba. The men announced a $536 million settlement by Credit Suisse, one of several banks accused in a long-running case that has netted roughly $1 billion in fines. The bank, which paid the biggest of the fines,...

One year ago this month, I opined about taxpayers footing the bill for several college football bowl games. Today, I decided to revisit the college football bowl scene and find out who's sponsoring this year's post-season gridiron clashes.

On Nov. 23, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, Beijing's bank regulator, ordered Chinese lenders to formulate long-term fundraising plans. Those banks with "relatively low" capital adequacy ratios and without "practical" plans would face restrictions on further growth relating to market entry, outbound investment, new branches and "business expansion." Chinese investors were rattled. On the following day, the Shanghai Composite Index plunged 3.45% on record turnover. Shares of the four largest Mainland banks listed in Hong Kong were down as well. Bank of China fell about 4%. Bank of China, one of the so-called Big Four banks, increased its loan book...

Banks Grapple With Debt Avalanche BY CARRICK MOLLENKAMP AND SERENA NG Banks have spent the past year dealing with a mountain of bad assets. Now attention is turning to trillions of dollars of debt they have maturing over the next few years. Banks unable to maneuver around the challenge could be forced to refinance their debt at sharply higher costs. The situation was caused by banks engaging in cheap borrowing during the credit-market boom that began in the middle of the decade and lasted through 2007. As financial markets hit crisis mode, banks were propped up by government guarantees that...

Jon Corzine is definitely open to running Bank of America. There haven't been any formal talks between the outgoing New Jersey Governor and the board of Bank of America, according to news reports. Part of the reason for this might be that the chairman of the board, Walter Massey, is on vacation. The bank is expected to select someone before Thanksgiving

Regulators close two Florida banks and on in California, costing the FDIC $986.4 million. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Two Florida banks and one in California failed Friday night, bring the 2009 national tally to 123. Regulators closed Century Bank, Federal Savings Bank in Sarasota, Fla., Orion Bank in Naples, Fla., and Pacific Coast National Bank in San Clemente, Calif. Customers of all the failed banks are protected, however. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which has insured bank deposits since the Great Depression, currently covers customer accounts up to $250,000.

A previously unknown militant group claims to be behind a series of arson attacks on banks in Frankfurt over the past two weeks. Police are still hunting for leads to the elusive group, while commentators are drawing links with Germany's notorious terrorist group the Red Army Faction. Until two weeks ago no one had heard of the Bewegung Morgenlicht. But now, they have thrust themselves onto the police's radar with a number of attacks on banks in Frankfurt. Two Saturdays ago, militants threw a petrol-soaked cloth into a Dresdner Bank foyer, setting fire to a cash machine. Just 24 hours...

SNIPPET: "SANTIAGO – One person was injured and several windows were destroyed when a small bomb exploded at a bank branch in the Chilean capital, police said. The blast occurred at 2 p.m. at a branch of Banco de Credito e Inversiones inside a Marriott hotel in Santiago’s affluent Las Condes neighborhood."

An armed bank robbery turns deadly Friday afternoon. It happened Dairyland State Bank in Exeland in Sawyer County around 2:30 p.m. Officers arrested one man near Deer Lake in Sawyer County. A massive search was underway for another suspect that ran into the woods. He’s described as a white man around 6’5’’ and 200 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. The Rusk County sheriff says an officer shot and killed a third man after he stayed in the car and took of south into Rusk County. The chase ended near Bruce where the man was shot. WEAU 13 News...

Forget our babble. Here's the data. Won't you please give to UNICEF the FDIC fund this Halloween? Failed Bank City State Deposits (in millions) Assets (in millions) Branches Bank USA, National Assoc. Phoenix AZ $212.8 $117.1 2 California National Bank Los Angeles CA $7,792.2 $6,160.4 68 San Diego National Bank San Diego CA $3,608.1 $2,892.4 29 Pacific National Bank San Francisco CA $2,335.3 $1,762.8 18 Park National Bank Chicago IL $4,706.1 $3,730.9 30 Community Bank of Lemont Lemont IL $81.8 $81.2 1 North Houston Bank Houston TX $326.2 $308.0 2 Madisonville State Bank Madisonville TX $256.7 $225.2 1 Citizens National...

Banks Get New Rules on Property By LINGLING WEI Federal bank regulators issued guidelines allowing banks to keep loans on their books as "performing" even if the value of the underlying properties have fallen below the loan amount. The volume of troubled commercial real-estate loans is skyrocketing. Regulators said that the rules were designed to encourage banks to restructure problem commercial mortgages with borrowers rather than foreclose on them. But the move has prompted criticism that regulators are simply prolonging the financial crisis by not forcing borrowers and lenders to confront, rather than delay, inevitable problems.

Ahhh.... There is nothing like the smell of an economic collpase in October. The road to recovery on Wall St. hit a pothole yesterday as banking analyst Richard Bove downgraded Wells Fargo (WFC) to a "SELL":

Legislate in haste, repent at leisure. Almost everything we’ve done in response to the credit crunch has served to exacerbate our problems. Quite apart from the generational debt, the nationalisations and the red tape, we have put in place the machinery of global economic government.

Warning: Mildly rough language contained herein. Don't gripe, you were warned in advance not to read this if you'll be offended! You have to be kidding me..... From Larry Summers: "Financial institutions that have benefited from government support can, should and must use this moment to think about what they can do for their country -- by accepting the necessary regulation to protect the American people," Summers said in remarks prepared for delivery at the Economist's Buttonwood Gathering in New York. "There is no financial institution that exists today that is not the direct or indirect beneficiary of trillions of...

We have a real judge! “The foreclosure sales (in question are) invalid because they failed to meet the requirements of (Massachusetts law),” Land Court Judge Keith Long wrote yesterday in reaffirming a decision he originally reached in March. At issue is "lost" (or improperly endorsed) paperwork when mortgages are sold from party to party, as typically happens many times during a securitization process. I have often argued that a lot of "lost" paperwork is in fact intentionally destroyed, as this is one of the few ways to cover up blatant fraud in the origination of mortgages - brokers putting the...

GRIFFIN, Ga. (MyFOX ATLANTA) - A former bank manager said Thursday that a life or death decision got him fired. The manager said he pulled a gun on a bank robber and fired shots at him, forcing the robber to flee. Police credited the manager's actions to the arrest of the suspect William Hunt. Wesley Hallman said it was common knowledge that he carried a pistol. The former manger said he felt safer with the gun when he opened the bank. Hallman said when he saw a would-be robber holding a gun in an employee's face, he challenged the man...

How to give an economics writer a coronary: Recommend something that has been done twice before, and both times led to disaster, including being a major contributor to The Great Depression. Well guess what: JP Morgan and the other banks are doing exactly that. Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Banks will push the Obama administration to expand its mortgage-modification program to allow interest-only periods on reworked loans, seeking to bring more homeowners into the initiative while recognizing concern that it may only postpone defaults, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. MAY? Can I remind people of history? Prior to the depression...

JPMorgan’s profit beat expectations in the third quarter, with investment banking operations posting strong gains, the company said Wednesday. But the company warned that credit costs remained high. The bank earned 82 cents a share in the third quarter, up from 9 cents a share in the same quarter a year ago. That was much higher than the 52 cents a share analysts surveyed by Thomson predicted. JP Morgan shares rose more than 3 percent in pre-market trading. Tier 1 common capital at JPMorgan [JPM 45.66 -0.42 (-0.91%) ] was also strengthened through capital generation during the quarter, up 8.2...

Details sought on Japan debt holiday plan By Michiyo Nakamoto in Tokyo Published: October 11 2009 23:21 | Last updated: October 11 2009 23:21 Japan’s financial industry and investors will seek clarity this week from the government over its plans to give small and medium-sized companies a debt holiday. Leading Japanese banks have suffered a sharp share sell-off in recent weeks, partly on concerns about the potential impact of these measures. “We need clarity on where this policy is going to go,” said Robert Feldman, chief economist at Morgan Stanley in Tokyo. The Financial Services Agency was expected on Friday...

Small Banks Fail at Growing Rate, Straining F.D.I.C. By ERIC DASH Published: October 10, 2009 A year after Washington rescued the banks considered too big to fail, the ones deemed too small to save are approaching a grim milestone: the 100th bank failure of 2009. In what has become a ritual, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has swooped down on a handful of troubled lenders almost every Friday, seizing 98 since January alone and putting their assets into the hands of another bank. While the parade of failures still represents a mere fraction of America’s small banks, it underscores a...

Banking Sector: Worst Is Yet To Come Reggie Middleton October 02, 2009 For those that believe mark to market rules are useless (I know they make it hard to goose your share price in a deflationary market, see "Charting the Truth"), I bring you the collapse of a bank last week that wasn't even on the FDIC's troubled bank list. To add misty eyes to misery, the mis-marking of the banks assets will cost the FDIC nearly a billion dollars. That's a lot for a bank that wasn't even on the watch list. If the banks were forced to carry...

At approximately 2 a.m. on Sept. 25, a small improvised explosive device (IED) consisting of three or four butane canisters was used to attack a Banamex bank branch in the Milpa Alta delegation of Mexico City. The device damaged an ATM and shattered the bank's front windows. It was not an isolated event. The bombing was the seventh recorded IED attack in the Federal District - and the fifth such attack against a local bank branch - since the beginning of September. The attack was claimed in a communique posted to a Spanish-language anarchist Web site by a group calling...

.... The record seems to show that capitalism cannot function without state help, and the State cannot function without private enterprise. So perhaps we can have a satisfying synthesis of the two. I am told that, via the state holding, I am an investor in certain banks. Apparently I have accidentally stumbled into ownership of one of the great global cartels. So now I say, if capitalism is such a piece of cake, then I will have a slice myself. I will turn myself into a professional asset manager. The State will be my fund manager. I give it my...

Channel 33 news is reporting that a suspected terrorist has been arrested along with an "inert" car bomb in downtown Dallas. The is a Muslim jihadi. Details as I find them.

A bank that inadvertently sent confidential account information on 1325 of its customers to the wrong Gmail address is suing Google for the identity of the Gmail account holder. The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, involves Rocky Mountain Bank of Wyoming. According to court documents, the bank in August received a request from one of its customers asking for certain loan statements to be sent to a third-party. An employee of the bank, responding to the request, sent the documents to the wrong Gmail address. In addition to the requested loan information,...

Another two US banks have been closed by the federal regulator, taking the total number of American banking failures this year to 94. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which controls the banking sector, has shut Irwin Union Bank & Trust and Irwin Union Bank. The move comes after their parent firm - Irwin Financial - was unable to meet an FDIC demand to boost their capital. The failure of the two banks is likely to cost the FDIC $850m.

“MI5 hiring Asian teenagers to fight cyber terror” London, September 21, 2009 First Published: 00:09 IST(21/9/2009) Last Updated: 02:44 IST(21/9/2009) SNIPPET: “MI5 head Jonathan Evans has told his staff that the recruits were essential to combat cyber terrorism which has been traced to China, Russia and Pakistan — the hackers have also intercepted messages from terrorists in Belmarsh maximum security prison, the newspaper said. In a report to Lord West, the Security Minister, Evans has revealed that during the summer over 1,000 hits were made on computers in Whitehall. Other targets have been air traffic control, power stations and the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hassan Nemazee, a fund-raiser for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, has been indicted for defrauding Bank of America, HSBC and Citigroup Inc out of more than $290 million in loan proceeds, U.S. prosecutors said on Monday. The announcement follows last month's indictment of Nemazee, head of a private equity firm and an Iranian American Political Action Committee board member, on one count of defrauding Citigroup's Citibank. The new indictment adds allegations that he defrauded two other banks, Bank of America and HSBC Bank USA, in a similar fashion by falsifying documents and signatures to...

Barclays has been accused of "banking by sleight of hand" after creating a new company to take over its most toxic assets and ringfence future losses.

In its latest bid to avoid international banking sanctions, Iran has reached an agreement with the Central Bank of Ecuador to allow the Export Development Bank of Iran to operate in this Andean nation. The move came even though Ecuador is fully aware that EDBI is under U.S. Treasury Department sanction for illicitly providing or attempting to provide financial services to Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL).

Bankers will see their pay-outs curtailed after G20 ministers agreed at the weekend to limit them to sucessful deals. The groundbreaking agreement has been designed to limit the negative economic effects of deals which go wrong and help the global recovery continue to take hold. The Chancellor Alistair Darling said the new clawback measures would mean financial companies are "focused on long-term sustainability and strength" and would result in staff not being "rewarded for reckless behaviour". However a plan put forward by the German and French governments to cap bankers' pay was rejected as a result of protests from the...

Of banks and vampire squid Patrick Hosking: On the money The row over the usefulness of bankers rumbles on, with many of our leaders rushing to the defence of the indefensible. The original remark by Lord Turner, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority, that some banking was socially useless, is on the face of it incontestable. Never mind useless, some banking has proved to be spectacularly harmful. Surely, with £1.3 trillion of public money committed to the bank bailout and business failures and unemployment soaring, we can at least agree on that? Apparently not. Alistair Darling, despite plenty of...

Bankers telling the world about their behind the scenes discussions. Warning, foul language in the humor. A new venue for employee activism.. Morning Huddle/ 1-2-3 Drill http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LItMPAYo2NU What brings you to Chase today? ( working the lobby, 123 drill) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4gTA8B8Ih8&feature=related

The Global Finance magazine released the world’s safest banks list for 2009 on February 25th. For the first time they published this mid-year update due to the turmoil in the world’s banking industry. The list was compiled based on the comparison of long-term credit ratings and total assets of the 500 largest banks in the world. The ratings were issued by Standard & Poor's, Moody’s and Fitch. According to Global Finance publisher Joseph D. Giarraputo “The rating agencies have determined these banks have demonstrated a more prudent and sustainable approach to risk than their peers.”

A Florida man born without arms says a Tampa bank would not let him cash a check because he couldn't provide a thumbprint.

Note: The following text is a quote: Bryan Resident Sentenced to Prison for Bank Fraud HOUSTON—Mohammad Ghafrullah Choudhry, aka Muhammad Ullah, a Pakistani national and resident of Bryan, Texas, was sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment for bank fraud, United States Attorney Tim Johnson and FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard C. Powers announced today. Convicted in June 2009 after pleading guilty to bank fraud, Choudhry, 46, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon. In June, Choudhry admitted to using the name Muhammad Ullah and a fraudulently acquired Social Security number to open credit card accounts with five banks—JP...

This Wednesday morning, I received a phone call from Rob Vrijhof, (right) our long time investment and banking associate in Zurich and a member of the Sovereign Society Council of Experts. Rob called my attention to the announcement today by the venerable Wegelin & Co., Switzerland’s oldest private bank, that it will stop doing business in the United States and with Americans. Founded in 1741, the St. Gallen-based bank, said their decision was a response to stricter measures introduced in the U.S. against tax evasion and projected changes in U.S. estate tax laws, which could make some non-U.S. citizens liable...

Bank On More Failures If the economy is rallying, why are hundreds of banks in danger of closing in the coming months? By Nancy Cook | Newsweek Web Exclusive Aug 28, 2009 While big institutions such as Citi, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley have grabbed headlines and billions in bailout money, 81 small banks have shuttered their doors so far this year. Despite a rebound in the markets, hundreds of additional banks are expected to close in the coming months as consumers and small businesses default on loans and as local real-estate investments drop. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.warned...

THE OBAMA / BIDEN STIMULUS IS WORKING NEWS: "STIMULUS" PROPPED UP A FEW GIANTS, LETS EVERYBODY ELSE GO DOWN THE TUBES The US banking system will lose some 1,000 institutions over the next two years, said John Kanas, whose private equity firm bought BankUnited of Florida in May. “We’ve already lost 81 this year,” he said. “The numbers are climbing every day." PLUS, FDIC INSURANCE WAY DOWN AND BANK FAILURES EXPECTED TO COST FDIC $70 BILLION BY 2013 Of course, that's even assuming the FDIC fund really exists. Former FDIC Chairman points out that the fund is an "accounting fiction."...

The US banking system will lose some 1,000 institutions over the next two years, said John Kanas, whose private equity firm bought BankUnited of Florida in May. “We’ve already lost 81 this year,” he told CNBC. “The numbers are climbing every day. Many of these institutions nobody’s ever heard of. They're smaller companies.” Failed banks tend to be smaller and private, which exacerbates the problem for small business borrowers, said Kanas, who became CEO of BankUnited when his firm bought the bank and is the former chairman and CEO of North Fork bank. “Government money has propped up the very...

WASHINGTON – The government insurance fund that protects more than $4.5 trillion in U.S. bank deposits fell to just $10.4 billion at the end of June, as the banking industry continues to struggle with souring loans. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. fund is at its lowest level since mid-1993, during the savings-and-loan crisis. That makes it likely that the government will have to charge banks another special fee to recapitalize its reserves. Officials could also consider borrowing up to $100 billion from the Treasury Department, but they have avoided this option so far.

U.S. regulators are set to buttress their defenses this week against a slew of sick banks still facing closure and the risks to the dwindling fund that protects depositors.The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp has been looking at expanding the pool of potential bidders for distressed banks, providing some capital relief for troubled assets that will soon be brought back onto banks' books, and charging further industry premiums to replenish the insurance fund.All of these moves are geared to get the banking industry, and the agency charged with ensuring the industry's safety, through a financial crunch that is coming to...

U.S. regulators are set to buttress their defenses this week against a slew of sick banks still facing closure and the risks to the dwindling fund that protects depositors.The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp has been looking at expanding the pool of potential bidders for distressed banks, providing some capital relief for troubled assets that will soon be brought back onto banks' books, and charging further industry premiums to replenish the insurance fund.All of these moves are geared to get the banking industry, and the agency charged with ensuring the industry's safety, through a financial crunch that is coming to...

Excerpt ... Assets for failures for [the current] crisis total $7.1 trillion to date. This is nearly eight times the assets compared with the inflation-adjusted total for the S&L crisis. The data for bank failures in the Great Depression is shown in the following table. The total deposits involved were about $7.6 billion over a span of 13 years. Adjusted for inflation, that is $100 billion in 2009 dollars. The size of the crisis today, adjusted for inflation, is more than 70 times larger than the entire Great Depression. It's unlikely that bank failures can peak until we are close...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Guaranty Bank became the second-largest U.S. bank to fail this year after the Texas lender was shut down by regulators and most of its operations sold at a loss of billions of dollars for the U.S. government to a major Spanish bank. The transaction approved by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. marked the first time a foreign bank has bought a failed U.S. bank. The bank failure, the 10th largest in U.S. history, is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund an estimated $3 billion. The FDIC seized Austin-based Guaranty Bank, with about $13 billion in assets...

Afghan police have killed at least three gunmen who stormed a bank building in Kabul this morning in the latest of string of Taleban attacks designed to disrupt tomorrow’s presidential election. Police were searching for any remaining attackers after a short gun battle at the building, which is just a few hundred metres from the presidential palace compound where President Hamid Karzai lives. A Taleban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack which followed a suicide car bombing yesterday that killed eight people and wounded more than 50 in Kabul. He also claimed that 20 armed suicide attackers wearing explosive vests...